Now I knew that was nonsense, but here was still a slightly privileged feeling to it. We stretched our legs out. Stevie sighed.
“Ah, I wish they still let you smoke up here. In the old days...”
“The good old days. Well, they weren’t so good, really, were they?”
He shrugged. “I used to have fun.”
“Yes, you did.” The bitter tone had crept into my voice.
“I saw Ron last night. That was why I wasn’t home for dinner.”
“Oh yeah? Was it the famous supper with his parents?”
He smiled. “It was, actually.”
“You must have got on well with them.”
He nodded. “They’re such cultured, intelligent people. They know London quite well. We had a great chat.”
“They don’t mind that Ron’s leaving?”
He seemed to want to talk about this. I didn’t particularly, but went along.
“No. I mean, I think they see that he’s ambitious, and they admire that, because they view themselves as having got stuck somehow in not very fulfilling jobs. They’re both civil servants.”
“So they want him to make money, be happy.”
“Yeah, he doesn’t necessarily have to get a Liberal Arts degree. They see the limitations of that.”
“You obviously do too, since you never finished.”
He shrugged. “I have no regrets. Maybe I will in five, ten years. I needed to do something. Everything at Trinity seemed more and more irrelevant. I wasn’t going to be a psychologist. I actually like working with money. So does Ron.”
I had nothing to say to this, and Stevie must have known it. To me, who was headed for an Arts degree, his words were insulting. So he thought so little of what he wanted to do, the only thing I could do.
We sat in silence. It seemed to go on for a long time. I began rummaging in my bag, just to fill the time. Then I heard him say, “Ron isn’t happy, though.”
“About what?”
“About me being alone in London for so long without him.”
“Why, does he think you’ve had affairs?” I said lightly.
Stevie rubbed his upper lip. He twisted around a little in his seat. I looked at him blankly.
“There have been a few,” he said in a low voice.
I bit my lip. I didn’t know what to say.
“I told him they didn’t mean anything. I was just lonely and ... well, curious. If you’ve only done it with one person, then you feel... Anyway, he took it hard. Got really wound up. I wanted to reassure him, but we didn’t have much time together.”
We had reached the city center. As we walked out into the crowded street I felt a surge of pity for Ron. I was sure he had been faithful. And that’s the reward you get for it, I thought. Stevie casually tells him that he’s had a few encounters, but they didn’t mean much! As if Ron would really believe him. How could he forgive him?
“What about now?” I asked.
The warm sooty air blew in our faces as we walked towards the next bus stop.
He seemed to be struggling for a reply. “Cathy, I don’t want you to think that I don’t intend to be faithful. I do want a committed relationship with Ron. I’ll do everything in my power to make him happy. It’s just, it’s hard to make friends in a strange city. Sometimes you end up getting physical. You find it hard to say no, but it’s not serious. The one guy I really clicked with, I care about a lot. He’s called Paul. I think I told you about him.”
“You mentioned a junkie in one of your letters.”
I felt that my bluntness, my hostility, was so obvious that he must sense it, become defensive, attack me. But somehow he didn’t. Quite cheerfully, he said, “Yeah, I helped him kick the habit. He’s still living with me. You’ll like him. Oh look, here’s our bus.”
* * *
Stevie and I had been taken to the Zoo a lot as kids, then we’d gone there by ourselves as we got older, up until I was about twelve. I understood his desire to get out of the house, but I couldn’t quite see why he had chosen this place. As we walked in through the turnstiles I asked, “Why are we here?”
“I’ve good memories of it,” he said, smiling. “Don’t you? Eating ice cream and watching the polar bear swim back and forth...”
“But you hear so much about how miserable the animals are, and I believe it. Look at them.”
We passed the monkeys first, jumping around manically in their small cages. Children stood squealing at the sight.
“I suppose I wanted to be around people, people having a good time,” he continued. “Even if the animals aren’t.”
“Yes, you love people.” He was striding on as if he really had somewhere to go. “I’ve never understood why.”
“I’ve never understood why you don’t. Quite seriously.”
A gentle rain had begun to fall as we stopped in front of the parrots and cockatoos.
“Do you think the ancient crocodile’s still here?” he asked. “Let’s go see.”
I followed him into the steamy reptile house. The huge coiled snakes lay immobile in their tiny glass-walled cells. The crocodile was floating in his pool and through the dark water that surrounded him I could see shiny pennies lying on the floor.
Stevie dropped one in. “For luck,” he said, staring down.
I didn’t have the heart to throw one in, but as we stood at the rail I hoped he had done it for both of us.
We hardly spoke for long periods as we made our way through the groups of onlookers. Even though animals aren’t supposed to have long lives, I thought, they’re mostly still here and nothing about them or their conditions has changed. But we had. Once Stevie stopped to talk to a handsome, tanned man with a mustache who was videotaping the Siberian tigers, and speaking into his camera in a low, pleasant voice.
He’s American, I realized, and as Stevie came up to me I looked at him questioningly.
“That’s cool! He says he’s an academic from California. He’s over here for a conference. He told me he brought his lover along.”
We stood and watched as an attractive, dark-haired young guy in his mid-twenties approached the man. Then the young man stood with his back to the railing while his friend taped him, asking him questions and laughing at his responses.
“God, they’re sweet,” I said, and was surprised when Stevie tugged at my hair playfully.
“Let’s go catch the sea lions being fed.”
As we walked off, I mused that it was the first time I had come across two openly gay men in public. It was strange.
“Do you get much of that in London?” I asked Stevie a bit shyly.
“Not enough,” he said. “People in the States tend to be more open. I liked seeing them too, I’m glad you did.”
“Of course,” I said.
* * *
We ate our sandwiches on a bench with a view of a flock of gloriously colored flamingos preening themselves in the sun.
“Well, they seem happy enough, I have to admit,” I said with a sigh.
“Once the exams are over, you’ll forget all this.” He seemed to be trying to cheer me up. I shrugged, not believing him.
“I hope you’ll like London. I’ll be busy all week, of course, but in the evenings and on weekends we can go out. There’s so much to do. Especially if you’re into music, and I know you are.”
I nodded. I didn’t want to talk about the future, or the past. I was stuck in an eternal present, where time was endless and where things lacked meaning. I didn’t care any more. Stevie’s enthusiasm about London meant nothing to me. None of it rubbed off on me, or seemed to relate to me in any way.
I had once believed in him. There had been a time when I thought that he could save me from despair. But he had not done enough, or perhaps it had just been too much to ask. I could tell my silence unnerved him, because he could sense that beneath it I was brooding. But he wasn’t able to read my thoughts.
“Well,” he said, running his fingers through his cropped hair, “I
do have something to report.”
He seemed uneasy. I continued munching on my sandwich and sipping my Diet Coke.
Stevie’s fingers punctured a blister in the painted wood of the bench. He scratched away at it absentmindedly.
“Well, I had a chat with Mum last night after I got back. It wasn’t very easy. You see, I couldn’t bear the thought of just coming out to them both together. They’re so different. So I decided that if I hinted to Mum, she might just say, ‘Oh, we know,’ or something.”
“What did she say?” I asked casually. It seemed absurd to be so matter-of-fact about it, but perhaps that was the way we had to approach it. If I was to tell him about Jeanette it would be in these humdrum tones too. You just couldn’t make a big deal out of it.
Stevie sighed. “She was getting my drift, and then she started crying, which I hadn’t expected. It made me feel like I’d been almost selfish to tell her, you know. So we talked. We’d never spoken to each other like this before. It was weird. She said she knew it hadn’t been easy for us to live with two people who were basically not happy together, and she thought that both you and I had suffered because of it. So what could I say? Then she said, I just don’t want you to hate us. I told her that I didn’t. Of course I didn’t. Then she told me a bit about her family, and she ended up saying that she and her brother had been really close because the parents had been so harsh, so distant, and she knew that her marriage to Dad had been rather like that. Anyway, she just cried and cried. Quietly. God, it was bad.”
I looked down at my hands. It was easy to see her being vulnerable with him, because she loved him so much.
“So,” Stevie said. “That’s about it. Except...”
I looked up.
“She talked about her past. You were right. John isn’t her brother. They found that out when they were in their early teens.”
A seagull flew over us. The air was getting damp. It would rain soon.
“I hated asking her about it. It seemed like she wanted to tell. I hope she did. Basically, she was kicked out of the house when they found her having sex with John. They packed her off to Dublin. They disowned her.”
“And John ... didn’t he take responsibility?”
“Yes, he did, but the parents wouldn’t listen. He was needed on the farm, you see.”
I sighed. Stevie was uncharacteristically silent, subdued. He’d got more than he bargained for, I thought, when he so carelessly opened his mouth. But I felt sorry for him too. Now he had to live with the burden of what he’d been told.
“She said the priests were the only people who gave her any comfort,” Stevie said.
“As if a priest could really understand.”
“Dad courted her for a long time before they married. I don’t think she loved him then. But now... ” He stopped.
“You think she loves him now?” I asked cynically. He shrugged.
“Who knows? I would say yes.”
“Well, for two people who love each other, they’ve been very unhappy,” I muttered.
“Love doesn’t always equal happiness,” Stevie said after a long pause. “In fact, usually it doesn’t.”
Now it was really raining. We stood up, looking at each other. “Let’s make a run for it,” Stevie suggested. So we ran as fast as we could through the Zoo, stopping every now and then to catch our breaths and laugh. I didn’t know how I managed to keep up with him, but I did somehow. At the bus shelter we stood close together, smoking, as we watched people straggle out, complaining, fussing with umbrellas. He still seemed a bit downcast. I was tempted to lay my head on his shoulder, but didn’t.
* * *
That night at dinner Dad was more jovial than usual. He seemed almost drunk even when we sat down. Mum was quiet, distracted, but warm. Stevie was also quieter than usual. Dad and I bantered about various different things. Suddenly he lifted his glass.
“A toast,” he said loudly. “To our son.”
Mum was staring at him, and so was Stevie. I looked away. I thought there might be a scene.
“And his newfound life in London,” Dad continued pompously. “Which includes being gay, I hear. Well, I’m glad you’ve found yourself.”
There was a stunned silence. We were all paralyzed, presumably with different emotions. So Mum had told him.
“I mean it,” my father said in a more natural tone of voice. “Look, it’s not the easiest thing in the world to talk about. But I always prided myself on being fairly open-minded.”
Licking his lips, Stevie managed to say, “Well, thanks, Dad.”
My father took a swig of his pint. “You see, when I was a young lad, I was over in London one summer doing a bit of work with a few friends. We got to know this fella who hung around some of the pubs. He was a poet, a type of Bohemian, I suppose you’d say. Anyway, this was the late Fifties, so nobody talked much about it. But one night I’d nowhere to sleep, I’d thrown my money away on horses, or something like that. So this fella invites me to stay at his place. Well, that’s all very fine and good, but I got an inkling that he was bent, my friends were warning me off, etc. But I went anyway. I never listened to advice. I thought I knew it all.”
He took another swig. “You never told me this story, Patrick,” my mother said with a shaky laugh.
He cleared his throat. “Well, we were both raised in the old school, Susan. You don’t talk about certain things. But the gist of it was, I was lying on his couch in the dark when I feel his hand stroking my hair. I sit up, he jerks back, looks scared. I could have beaten the shit out of him and he knew it. But instead I just said, look, you offered me a bed for the night and I took you at your word. I don’t care if you’re a queer, but I’m not that way inclined meself. So piss off and let me get some rest.” And he did, but not before he apologized. And I said, “There’s nothing to be sorry for, it’s just an honest mistake, that’s all.” So if I let that guy off the hook why can’t I let my son off the hook? That’s what I think. What’s the point in getting angry about it? You can’t change.”
“No,” Stevie said quietly.
“As long as you’re happy, that’s the main thing. You could both be queer, for all I care.”
I stared down the table, my face burning. Oh God, was he going to pick on me now? It had never seemed to enter his mind that I had no social life, no boyfriends. Would he start harping on about that now?
There was an uncomfortable silence at the table, the silence of people who no longer have much to say to each other.
“Can I be excused?” I asked finally. Hearing a mumbled assent from my father, I left the room, glancing at Stevie. He sat looking down at his plate. I wondered what was going through his mind, but couldn’t imagine. I have to work, I thought. I stepped into my room, closed the door, and then, on impulse, locked it. It made me feel safer somehow. I sat down at my desk and took out my books.
Chapter 15
On the day of the last exam, Jeanette, who had seemed to be avoiding me, wandered over as I sat in the sun outside the gym. The gym was where we did our public exams. It was the biggest space in the whole school, with a green shiny floor that magnified every scrape of our chairs and desks. I can still remember the deadly hush as the invigilator announced, “You may turn over your papers now” and we all bent over our exam sheets, pens at the ready, dreading what surprises might be in store.
The only surprise, for me, was that I couldn’t tell if I’d done well or not. In previous exams, the Inter for example, I’d had a sense of achievement, of triumph almost, as I’d written out my answers in a rush. But in each subject now I felt the same gluey inability to really judge the quality of what I was doing. Some sharpness of concentration I’d had, some focus, had been lost, forever it seemed.
People looked at me now with a kind of grudging respect. “You’ll do great,” one girl had said to me on the morning of the history exam. “You’ll get an A.” They were so sure, but I wasn’t, I wasn’t sure of anything or anyone, and there seemed nothin
g to hold on to anymore.
Jeanette stood in front of me. She looked drained, almost haggard, but it could have been the thick white makeup that she’d applied to her face, the garish pink eye shadow that she smeared over her lids. She seemed unsteady on her feet. I looked up at her, not saying anything, not knowing what to say.
“So Cathy,” she began with a kind of desperate eagerness. “Is this it for you? How do you think you’ve done?”
I blinked. “OK, I suppose. It’s hard to tell,” I said in guarded tones. “How about you?”
“I don’t know,” Jeanette said. “I could see myself scribbling away like mad in all of them but I didn’t really know what I was saying. On the exam today I just got up and left. It doesn’t matter anyway.”
“Why?” I asked, after a time.
“I’m going up to Drogheda as soon as this is over. I’ll be working there.” Drogheda, a small, ancient town up near the border with the North of Ireland, was for some reason the headquarters of the Irish Association for the Blind.
“It’s over now, Jeanette,” I heard myself saying. “I mean, this was your last one, wasn’t it? So when are you leaving?”
She glanced away. She’s so miserable, I thought, but it didn’t affect me. Not in the way that it had. Even that realization didn’t please me.
“In a few days,” she said hurriedly. “Look, would you like to meet me in town tomorrow? We could have lunch somewhere, walk around. Like we used to.”
She was almost whispering. There had always been a manic, slightly paranoid side to her. It was as if she felt she shouldn’t be overheard saying these things to me, as if she were under surveillance.
“Yeah, OK.” My voice had a kind of robotic quality to it. “Fine. When should we meet?”
Jeanette was always full of ideas. “Oh, on O’Connell Bridge,” she said airily. “At 1 o clock. I might be a bit late—my watch is broken!”
She had had a succession of watches as I knew her, cheap, battery-operated ones with plastic straps. They always broke. Everything around her, I thought, is always broken or missing or somehow not working. How does she hold herself together?
The Leaving Page 21